> how easy it integrates with HTML, JavaScript, CSS

No more than any other language or product written in such.

> Of course it's ugly, but who besides a bunch of snobs and people who actually can't use it really cares? Who should care?

You see, this is a big part of what's wrong with the PHP community, the apathy and immaturity. How on Earth is dismissing the reasoned criticism from professional peers and academics as "bashing" from "haters" or "snobs" an appropriate response?

Critique is fine but it just need to be based on other things than taste.

Point to a thing you cant do with PHP and you have valid criticism.

Critiquing PHP because you you think it's ugly or not elegant enough is only valid if you care about such things and then you are by definition a snob.

"Point to a thing you can't do" is bitterly disingenuous. Nobody's saying you can't do things in PHP, they're saying it's extremely disadvantageous to do so. Technical debt can't be wished away by screaming about "haters" and it's juvenile to try.

And that is the point. For most people it's not disadvantagous so they use it.

Having spent a very long time in the PHP community I doubt that quite a lot. I am strongly skeptical of the notion that most are in the headspace to be able to evaluate alternatives effectively if they know they exist. Because most of them sound like you in your posts in this thread: circle the wagons and call everyone who says PHP isn't a smart choice a "hater". It's a very insular, very screwed-up social dynamic that resists change (despite the efforts of some really smart folks like @fabpot to drag your average PHP programmer into some semblance of good practices).

Listen here.

I reacted to the typical criticism made about PHP which we saw again in this thread. The OP was about well written PHP and of course it turns into a PHP is bad.

Well boo freaking hoo.

PHP is a great tool. If you dont like it anymore dont use it. If you fear it will hinder your companies future success even though it seems to serve FB amongst others just fine for a while, dont use it.

But please, please, please, dont confuse your own personal opinion about what is good and bad with the fact that for many people PHP is a great tool.

With the typical reaction. "Thousands of sites use PHP just fine". "I don't care about the quality of libraries or the design of a language, and if you do, you're a snob". Trite.

And I doubt I, and many here, will ever make or work with a company which can have the leisure to rewrite the language implementation.

Thats not the typical reaction. The typical reaction is to go on a hate fest about PHP just as it happened in this thread purely based on some self-established criteria for why it is so bad.

Case in point. A post about high quality PHP gets turned into a discussion about PHP as a language.

You're reframing all criticism towards PHP to "can it be done with x" from "is it best done with x".

> Point to a thing you cant do with PHP and you have valid criticism.

s/PHP/Brainfuck

Does your argument still hold? Are you now a snob?

The OP was about beautifully written PHP code.

The comments I am reacting to are those who are reframing that discussion into a discussion about PHP as a tool in general.

So no I am not reframing anything. I am reacting to the reframing if anything.

> How easy it is to find a webhotel and get started, how easy it integrates with HTML, JavaScript, CSS.

Good! We can see you clearly haven't tried using any of the many frameworks that easily integrate those things.

> who besides a bunch of snobs and people who actually can't use it really cares?

The people who later have to re-write these garbage projects, for one. I guess you've never had a client with a failed PHP project who needed the thing fixed. Also, people who do things more complicated than geocities pages.

Oh please.

Plenty of jobs no matter what language have to be rewritten for many different reasons.

The fact is, and that is what you guys seem to have a problem accepting is that PHP is a perfectly reasonable tool for many reasons and for many situations.

Get over it. Make it as easy to get started with your preferred language rather than blaiming PHP.